Political leaders invited to accompany Moon for cross-border trip

SEOUL -- South Korea's presidential office offered to form a special nine-member political delegation including opposition and ruling party leaders who will accompany Presidential Moon Jae-in to North Korea for a new inter-Korean summit this month.

The invitation came on Monday from Im Jong-seok, the top presidential aide who heads a preparation committee for the summit. Moon will make a three-day trip to Pyongyang from September 18, accompanied by a 200-member official delegation.

Im suggested that a political delegation would promote "stable exchanges and cooperation" between the two Koreas. "I think there may be some difficulties and political burdens for those invited, but I will once again politely ask them to come," he said.

The political group involving South Korea's parliamentary speaker, two vice speakers, the chairman of the parliamentary committee on foreign affairs and unification and the heads of five political parties would be allowed to have a separate schedule in Pyongyang.

An official invitation has yet to be sent, but the leaders of South Korea's two conservative opposition parties have been negative. "I will persuade those who are reluctant to go, but I can not force them," Lee Hae-chan, who heads the ruling Democratic Party, told reporters.

Earlier, ruling and opposition party negotiators failed to agree on the ratification of a peace agreement signed by Moon and Kim. In April, the two Koreas agreed to work on ending the status of war, stop all hostile acts against each other and replace a fragile armistice signed at the end of the 1950-53 Korean War with a lasting peace regime. Two months later, U.S. and North Korean leaders agreed to forge a lasting peace regime in return for Pyongyang's complete denuclearization.